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Comment on Ok, some nerd please explain the switches on this IRL calculator app

Until I saw your post, I was going to guess the A,0,2,3,4,6,F switch would switch it into different numerical bases. Like, if you wanted to do math in binary, switch to the “2” position. “0” (or maybe “A”) would be base 10. “F” would be hexadecimal. But what you have definitely makes more sense.

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zaphod@sopuli.xyz ⁨18⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
F is 15, so that’d be weird for hex, and I’ve never seen base 4 or 6 used for anything, base 8 is common for some things but missing here.

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- zarp86@sh.itjust.works ⁨18⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  It kind of makes sense in that 15 is the last single digit in hex.
  
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- AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world ⁨18⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Some computers have been known to work in base 6.
  
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  - froh42@lemmy.world ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    6 bits, 36 bit words. Octal
    
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